The best way to grow your business
Marjan A. Manzil, National Director BNI, Sri Lanka and Dr. Ivan
Misner, Founder and Chairman BNI
Reality-check time. How many ways are there for you to increase your
business? Dozens? Hundreds? May be thousands? Guess again. Try four.
That's right, there are only four main strategies you can incorporate to
increase your business. Don't believe me? Then read on.
First, you can advertise. Competition for customers in our society is
fierce. Your competitors are trying to win over the same clients or
customers that you are.
Even in a good economy, advertising doesn't guarantee success over
your competitors. The people you're trying to reach, by some estimates,
are bombarded by nearly 2,000 or more advertising messages per day.
This constant inundation means your prospects potentially have many
alternative sources of supply for the products or services you provide.
The second way to increase your business is through a public
relations campaign. This can be very expensive and time consuming for a
small business. Therefore, if your company is too small to hire a PR
firm, you need to create your own personalised PR program.
The third way to increase your business is through word of mouth.
Word of mouth has long been recognised as the most cost-effective form
of marketing a business can use. Tom Peters, author of Thriving on
Chaos, regards word of mouth as one of the major ways a business can
bring in new clients or customers.
Peters asserts that one has to be "just as organised, thoughtful and
systematic about 'word-of-mouth', advertising" as with other forms of
advertising and marketing. Yet, "you never see a 'word-of-mouth
communications' section in marketing plans," he says.
I, too, believe that if you don't have a well-structured plan, you're
not likely to have impressive results. Many business professionals make
the mistake of thinking that developing good word of mouth is about
providing "good customer service."
There's one other marketing strategy that a lot of people use as an
alternative to advertising and PR, and that is, yes, that's right, the
"C word" - cold-calling! Cold-calling - just mentioning it makes us
shiver.
Given the other options, who in his right mind would want to spend
the rest of his professional life cold-calling?
Well, there it is, you marketing reality check. Given only these four
strategies for increasing your business, we'd have to recommend
advertising. However, most businesses have a limited budget to spend on
advertising. PR is best used in conjunction with other marketing
efforts.
And we don't know about you, but many years ago we promised ourselves
we would never do a cold call ever again for as long as we live! That
leaves only one other way you can effectively build your business: by
word of mouth.
A cost-effective form of advertising
Word of mouth is a form of advertising and, like media advertising,
requires careful planning to achieve a worthwhile return for your time
and energy.
As you begin to use and benefit by word-of-mouth advertising, you'll
see that it's a very cost-effective medium.
If you haven't developed a structured word-of-mouth marketing
programme to generate referrals, then you can't enjoy its benefits.
While many entrepreneurs recognise the value of referrals to their
respective organisations, they're not clear on how to consistently
generate a large number of referrals.
Worse, they don't realise there's a segment of the population looking
for their product or service right now.
People want referrals
People don't want to go to the telephone book to pick a lawyer.
People don't want to pick a real-estate agent from the Yellow Pages - or
an accountant, or a chiropractor, or an insurance agent, or a dentist,
or a mechanic.
People want referrals! Historically, the only problem has been
linking the people who need services or products with the people who
provide them. A structured word-of-mouth campaign begins by
acknowledging that there's a segment of the public that wants you and
your service as badly as you want their business.
People from all walks of life want referrals - not just the business
community, but the public as well. Few people want to choose a dentist,
for example, from a printed advertisement.
People want to have more personal information before making such
selections because whenever you choose a professional exclusively from
an advertisement and have no other source of information, you may be
taking a big risk as to the quality of service you will receive.
With referrals, the risk is greatly reduced. Someone else has done
business with that person and is recommending that professional to you
with confidence.
Referrals are good business
Compare a lead that you receive form an advertisement with a similar
lead (that is, referral) that you get from someone you know. The
referred lead is easier to close and costs less to obtain. Often, the
referral provides a higher-quality client or customer with less chance
of misunderstanding or disappointment.
When we ask audiences why referral business is better than the
business they get from ads, they say the referred business:
. is easier to close,
. has far fewer objections,
. has a stronger sense of loyalty,
. remains a client longer, and most important of all,
. has a higher sense of trust.
Relying on the advice of a mutual friend or acquaintance, the
referral starts with a higher level of trust for you and your product or
service. Getting dozens of people to send such referrals your way every
day is what building successful word-of-mouth business is all about. |